


calling you home

by nereid



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-03
Updated: 2014-06-03
Packaged: 2018-02-03 06:53:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1735253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nereid/pseuds/nereid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Caroline goes to parties, Stefan likes her voice and Damon is crazy enough to suggest Stefan may be in love with her.</p><p>(A sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1735232">here is my hand, my heart</a>. Both can be read independently.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	calling you home

**Author's Note:**

> for: [](http://lynzie914.livejournal.com/profile)[**lynzie914**](http://lynzie914.livejournal.com/) who is fantastic and who wrote me a fantastic caroline(/stefan) fic which you should all go read [here](http://lynzie914.livejournal.com/99618.html). her prompt was:
> 
>  _I’ve been wrapping one night stands_  
>  around my body like wedding bands  
> but none of them fit in the morning  
> they just slip off my fingers and slip out the door  
> and all that lingers is the scent of you  
> 

When Caroline Forbes wants something, Caroline Forbes tends to get it. This is a lesson Stefan Savatore should have learned already, back in Mystic Falls and then again later, and in the town after that and every other town as well.

So when Caroline Forbes decides she wants the experience of going to college again, and this time with Stefan Salvatore, he should already know how that is going to end. (He probably does too, in some place of his mind he never speaks from.)

They're drinking coffee at some rest stop or other, on their way from some town or other, going nowhere in particular. Caroline smiles at him (he still thinks of the Sun whenever she smiles at him) and pokes his elbow playfully, "Come on, Stefan, it'll be fun. You do still remember fun, don't you?"

He thinks about it for a few seconds and then concedes, says "Okay" and that's it. They're going to college. She claps her hands together and leans over the table to kiss his cheek briefly, “You won’t regret this, I promise, we’re gonna have so much fun, just think of all the…“

He doesn’t hear what she says afterwards, or he doesn’t remember it. He remembers her lips on his cheek and the brief moment he wondered if he should go into the kiss with his lips and not his cheek. He doesn’t, and the moment passes, naturally. He moves on.

\--

Caroline's always wanted to have a beach house and live in a beach house. Stefan knows because she describes it all to him, like she's perpetually trying to convince him even after he's said yes.

"We can have a room just for your emo books and diaries, you know. And we can have a terrace. And a pool. Well no, really, we'll have the ocean, why would we want a pool?"

(Stefan likes it when Caroline says _we_. It's like making a promise more than anything else.)

They're staying at a motel now and Stefan mostly sits on the bed of their room and reads and stares at Caroline and helps her when she wants his help with reading endless college brochures and when she takes a break, to eat or walk or talk, he sometimes reads aloud to her then and sometimes she lies next to him and puts her head on his shoulder when he reads to her. He likes that.

After two and a half days, Caroline informs him they're going to Occidental College. Her eyes look tired but she stands with her back straight and looks proud and hopeful and he wants her to have this, if it makes her stand as straight as she stands now and if makes her eyes this hopeful.

\--

"For someone as old as you, you're a lousy packer, Caroline."

"Shut up."

She throws one of his books at him and he catches it.

He laughs and she smiles.

He could get used to this.

\--

They enroll in the college that Caroline's suggested and then find a beach house they like and then they find its owner. Caroline compels him. Stefan rolls his eyes but in the end he doesn't move to stop her.

The beach house is wonderful, all white and yellow and wood and so _so_ full of light. They really do end up setting up one room for Stefan's diaries and some of the books from his collection, those he always carries with him.

Caroline takes lots of different classes, Biology and Film Studies and Art History and something else probably that Stefan can't remember.

Stefan invites her to join him for his classes, but Caroline laughs or rolls her eyes or says something about him being terribly boring for a centuries old and sort of handsome vampire. It depends on which day it is. (Stefan likes it best when she laughs or when she calls him handsome. He can’t make up his mind.)

Stefan likes college, has always liked college. He likes being around so much people and still being able to find some alone time when he wants to. He likes the endless lectures and writing papers and reading a lot. College is good for Stefan. But Caroline, Caroline simply looks reborn here. Organizations and lectures and anything that they come across, Caroline just seems to excel at it naturally. She gets him invited to what he’s told are all the important parties and she likes going to them as well. He likes it when she goes too, likes it when she makes a show of getting ready, takes ages to decide between curling and straightening her hair and takes an even longer time to decide which clothes to wear and Stefan just enjoys watching her prepare, every single time so intensely and with such focus, like it’s all a life or death situation. So Caroline goes to all the parties and always invites him to tag along, at least at first she does. He sometimes goes and sometimes doesn’t, and they usually spend some time together at the parties. He still always asks her to dance and they talk and laugh and he mostly likes it when they walk home afterwards because they walk on the beach and she gets tired or bored from walking in whatever pair of ridiculously high heels she’s wearing that day so she leans on him as she takes them off and then she makes him carry her shoes while they walk home. He’s sure he likes these quiet times the most. She looks at him sometimes then, a look he can’t really determine. He thinks about asking, but he never does and --

\-- and then, well. Something happens. (Or at least that’s what Stefan guesses.)

\--

Obviously, this isn’t a thing of great importance to him. But - sometimes Caroline starts not inviting him to parties and usually when she doesn't, she doesn't come home alone, but with some boy or other. (They're all _boys_ to Stefan in his head.)

He stares at them in the morning, at least at those that are still around the next morning. They have blonde and dark hair and no hair and long hair and eyes in a million different colors and they wear cheap colognes. He mostly sits in his room when they leave in the morning. He thinks about doing other things, intimidating them or telling them he’s her boyfriend or sometimes her brother, it's all fun and games in his head, thinking of their potential reactions, other than of course, an occasional odd sort of chill that makes its way through his spine on those occasions sometimes, when he’s alone and thinking about Caroline and her boys.

He doesn’t talk to Caroline about this so intently that he’s sure she knows he wants to anyway. She smiles differently these days, he thinks. He can’t really be sure.  
He never comes out to see them, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t pay attention. No. Stefan listens. He’ll be sitting and reading a book in his room when he hears the front door of the house ( _their_ house) unlock and then open. Hears the click clack of her heels and heavier footsteps following. Hears a giggle or two and the touch of what he supposes are the boy’s fingers on her clothing. He hears moans and sighs and Caroline’s _oh fuck_ and then nothing. He reads then, reads while he listens (or at least tries to) and reads later (or at least tries to). He imagines the female heroines in his book with Caroline’s voice, _oh fuck_ and he likes them better that way then not.

The world doesn’t stop spinning, it just goes on and on and first Stefan says nothing to all of this. He ignores whatever seems to be going on with his stomach, which is obviously probably just him being protective of Caroline. And it’s weird, because she seems strange. She rolls her eyes at him more often than not, as if it’s the only appropriate response to whatever he seems to be doing wrong, and he’s never really sure what it is that he’s done wrong.  
In his crowning moment of wisdom, he decides to call Damon. He’s not sure what to tell him, so he just tells him everything.  
Damon just says nothing for a while, listens to Stefan. At some point, Damon says he’s thinking, and then he says “Oh hi Elena. Oh, it’s Stefan. Nah, he’s just fallen for vampire Barbie over on the west coast” Stefan hangs up at that point. Damon is useless, obviously. (And not right at all. Or – nope. Definitely not right at all.)

\--

And still.

\--

It couldn’t be that he’s in love with Caroline.

\--

Or could it be?

\--  
He dreams about her. Maybe it happens more than once, but this is the time he remembers. He’s lying in his bed and then she comes into his room and then she’s only wearing a towel and then she’s standing by the foot of his bed and then she drops the towel and

\-- oh. Oh fuck.

He’s so screwed.

\--

It’s a Friday evening and he puts on his best cologne and what he’s heard her say once were his best shirt and jeans and then he goes to the party he knows she’s at. She didn’t invite him this time, but this time it also doesn’t stop him; he knows where she’s gone and he’ll find her somehow when he gets there. He thinks about drinking something, _liquid courage_ and all that, but he’s hundreds of years old and he should be able to do this without bourbon or whatever college kids drink these days.  
He drives to the party and he does manage to find her. He sees her standing with a plastic cup in her hand, across the room, talking to a dark haired boy in a leather jacket. Her hair’s straight today and she’s wearing it in some sort of braid and her dress is white and endlessly long. He comes to her, long, decisive steps and a look on his face that he hopes seems determined.  
She spots him before he’s reached her and she smiles at him. “Hello Stefan”, she says. She offers him her cup and he nods and empties the cup. Maybe liquid courage’s not as stupid as it seemed.

Down the rabbit hole it is.

“Remember what I said to you, first party we were at together?”

“Why’re you asking? Stefan, are you alright?”

“I take it back”, he whispers, leans into her, his fingers tracing the skin of her collarbone lightly, and he’s breathing more than he’s talking into her skin.

“You and me - it’s definitely going to happen. I just wanted to give you a heads up.”

And he walks away.

\--

He’s reached his car by the time she catches up.

“You were jealous. Of the men –“

“Boys.”

“Whatever.”

“Yes. Am. Not was. Present tense.”

“Still not very different from your _hey it’s Tuesday_ look.”

Her tone might be interpreted as teasing but maybe she’s not, he can’t tell anything anymore these days, so he does what he can, really. He takes her by the elbow and pulls her into a kiss. It’s brief and slow and ends too soon, because apparently she loses her balance, but she steadies herself, her hand on his elbow now as well.

“You like me,” she says, her tone definitely teasing now, he can tell by the way she stretches out her vowels and also by the curve of her smile.

“I like you,” he concedes.

“Good. You should,” she says, playful. They still haven’t moved apart and he’s becoming increasingly aware of her body.

He doesn’t know what to say to her now, which is alright, because she probably has enough words and meaning to cover both of them.

“I like you too,” she says. It sounds so simple, he feels stupid it took him months (years) to say the same.

“And the boys?”

“They were fun.”

“Oh and I’m not?”

“You’re more,” she says, and then she kisses him. It’s a longer kiss this time. She moves closer to him as well and he starts thinking about how thin that dress seems to be and then she pulls away again.

“Come on. Let’s go home now,” she whispers. He nods.

(Stefan likes it when Caroline says _home_. It's like making a promise more than anything else.)

She takes her hand into his –

and just like that, he’s home.


End file.
